The ex-London mayor has been suspended since 2016 in a row over allegations of anti-Semitism following comments he made about Hitler and Zionism.

Mr Livingstone said he did not accept he was guilty of anti-Semitism or bringing Labour into disrepute but his case had become a "distraction" for the party and its political ambitions.

Jeremy Corbyn said it was a sad moment but it was the "right thing to do".

Mr Livingstone, an ally of Mr Corbyn, has always maintained that comments he made about the Nazi leader supporting a Jewish homeland when he first came to power in the early 1930s were historically accurate.

Livingstone resigned, but his detractors are still not satisfied because they wanted him expelled instead.

Quote:

Jeremy Corbyn faced fury from Labour MPs today for allowing Ken Livingstone to resign rather than expelling him from the party over anti-Semitism.

The MPs' anger was fuelled as the ex-mayor of London hinted he could still make a comeback despite last night's surprise decision.

Mr Livingstone finally quit Labour after more than two years of storms over his Hitler rants - but he remains unrepentant about claiming the Nazi dictator allied himself with Jews before 'going mad' in the Holocaust.

Mr Corbyn was under fire today for not acting himself as demanded by leading Jewish groups.

Instead, he last night paid tribute to his friend and said he was 'sad' at Mr Livingstone's decision but accepted it was the 'right thing to do'.

Mr Livingstone risked further antagonising his critics by suggesting he could even apply to rejoin the party if the left broke the grip of the right which, he said, still dominated the party's disciplinary machinery.

'It depends on how long I live, doesn't it? We will come back and talk about it in a couple of years,' he told Sky News.

Backbencher Wes Streeting, who has been at the forefront of the campaign against anti-Semitism in Labour, said there must be no way back for the former mayor.

'We must now make it clear that he will never be welcome to return. His vocal cheerleaders and supporters should follow him out the door,' he said.

Fellow MP Ruth Smeeth, however, said the party should have acted years ago to remove Mr Livingstone following a series of alleged anti-Semitic incidents.

'Ken Livingstone's behaviour has been grossly offensive to British Jews,' she said.

We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.

Yeah, what I read didn't seem anti-semitic, he talked about Hitler being zionist. That's more true than it is false, he wanted the Jews to have their own state. Obviously there's an argument over what zionism really means and if you need to fully subscribe to the ideology to 'be' one but at the very least Hitler initially supported zionist policies for Jewish relocation to their own land/state. To acknowledge that isn't anti-semitic.

The weird bit though is that he seemed to go off about Hitler seemingly out of nowhere. I think if nothing else he's a loose cannon and Labour officials probably worried about what the next brief from him to the press all about Hitler was going to be.

__________________And he piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the rage and hate felt by his whole race. If his chest had been a cannon, he would have shot his heart upon it.